Читать книгу Anna Meets Her Match - Arlene James - Страница 9

“Da-a-a-dy!” Gilli’s muffled voice called from the backseat of the silver sedan as Reeves Leland lifted the last of the suitcases from the trunk. “Out!” Gilli demanded, rattling the disabled door handle.

He had parked the car beneath the porte cochere on the west side of the massive antebellum mansion known as Chatam House, where he and his daughter had come seeking sanctuary. “In a minute, Gilli,” he said, closing the trunk lid.

Since turning three six months earlier, his daughter had grown increasingly difficult, as if he didn’t have enough problems. He thought of the letter that he’d recently received from his ex-wife. The divorce had been final for nearly a year, but she had suddenly decided that he hadn’t treated her fairly in the settlement. He shook his head, more pressing concerns crowding his mind. The most immediate had to do with housing.

Honeybees had driven him and his daughter out of their home. Honeybees!

Pausing in stunned contemplation Reeves felt the gray chill of an early February breeze permeate the camel-tan wool of his tailored overcoat. It rattled the dried leaves of the enormous magnolia tree on the west lawn like old bones, adding to the strangeness of the morning.

Father in heaven, I’m so confused, he thought. Honeybees?

Whatever God was doing in his life, he knew that he need not worry about his welcome here. He hadn’t even called ahead, so certain was he of that welcome, and he gave himself a moment now to bask in that certainty, his gaze wandering over stately fluted columns, white-painted stone walls and graceful redbrick steps leading to the deep porch and the vibrant yellow, paneled side door with its so proper black framing. Terra-cotta pots flanked this side entry. In the springtime, he knew, flowers would spill over their edges, presenting a colorful welcome that would echo throughout the fifteen-acre estate.

Reeves had always loved this grand old house. The picturesque antebellum mansion and its grounds belonged to his aunts, the Chatam triplets, elder sisters of his mother. None of the aunties had ever married, but they were the first ones of whom Reeves had thought when the full weight of his situation had become clear to him.

“Da-a-dy!” Gilli bellowed.

“I’m coming. Hold on.”

He took one step toward the side of the car before the sound of tires on gravel at the front of the house halted him. Turning away from his impatient daughter, he trudged to the corner of the building. A battered, foreign-made coupe pulled up at the front of the mansion. Reeves stared in appreciation at the slender blonde in dark clothing who hopped out. Lithe and energetic, with a cap of soft, wispy hair, she moved with unconscious grace. As if sensing his regard, she looked up, and shock reverberated through him. Recognizing Anna Miranda Burdett, his old childhood nemesis, Reeves frowned.

Well, that was all this day needed. Back during their school days she had done everything in her power to make his life miserable, which was why they hadn’t spoken in years, though her grandmother Tansy was a friend of his aunties. Her pranks were legendary, and he’d once had the dubious honor of being her favorite target. She’d made a travesty of his senior year, his young male pride taking a regular beating at her hands. Given his current problems, he had no patience for dealing with Anna Miranda today.

He comforted himself with the thought that she was most likely just picking up her grandmother. He couldn’t imagine any other reason why she would be here at Chatam House. Hopefully, they would depart before he met with his aunts.

“Da-a-a-dy!”

He turned back toward his daughter, his footsteps crunching in the gravel as he hurried over to let her out of the car.

“I want out!” she complained, sliding down to the ground, her caramel-blond curls mingling with the fake fur on the hood of her pink nylon coat. She looked up at him, an accusing expression on her face.

A perfect combination of her mother and himself, with his rust-brown eyes and dimpled chin and Marissa’s hair and winged brows, Gilli looked like every father’s dream child. Unfortunately, this child whom he had wanted so much seemed terribly unhappy with him. Whatever was he going to do without Nanny?

Gilli bolted across the gravel toward the porch.

“Watch it!” he barked. Even before the warning left his mouth, she skidded and, predictably, tumbled down.

She fell to her knees, howling. Reeves reached her in two long strides and was lifting her to her feet when that yellow door opened, revealing the concerned countenance of Chester Worth. Sturdy, pale and balding, Chester and his wife, Hilda, along with her sister Carol, had served as household staff for the Chatam sisters for more than two decades. Wearing nothing more than a cardigan sweater over a plain white shirt, suspenders and slacks, Chester stepped out into the February cold, his bushy brows drawn together over his half-glasses.

Gilli’s wails shut off abruptly. “H’lo, Chester,” she greeted brightly.

“Miss Gilli, Mister Reeves, good to see y’all. Can I help?”

Reeves tugged Gilli forward, saying to Chester, “Could you get Gilli to the kitchen and ask Hilda to give her some lunch while I bring in the luggage?”

“Luggage, you say?” Chester asked, taking Gilli by the hand.

“We’ve come for a stay,” Reeves replied, adding wearily, “It’s been quite a morning, Chester.”

“We got bees,” Gilli announced, “lots and lots.”

“I’ll explain after I’ve seen the aunties,” Reeves went on. “Where are they?”

“All three are in the front parlor, Mr. Reeves,” Chester answered. “You just leave those bags and go let them know you’re here. I’ll take care of everything soon as Miss Gilli’s settled. The east suite should do nicely. Bees, is it?”

“Lots and lots,” Gilli confirmed.

“Thank you, Chester. I’ll leave the bags inside the door.”

Reeves returned to the rear of the car as the older man coaxed Gilli away. He carried the luggage into the small side entry then removed his overcoat, folding it over one arm. Smoothing his dark brown suit jacket, he headed off down a long narrow hallway, past the kitchen, butler’s pantry and family parlor, toward the center of the house.

The scents of lemony furniture polish and gingerbread sparred with the musty odor of antique upholstery and the mellow perfume of aged rosewood, all familiar, all welcome and calming. Running through this house as a child with his cousins, Reeves had considered it his personal playground and more home than whichever parent’s house he’d currently been living in. It had always been his one true sanctuary.

Feeling lighter than he had for some time, Reeves paused at the intersection of the “back” hall and the so-called “west” hall that flanked the magnificent curving staircase, which anchored the grand foyer at the front of the house. He lifted his eyes toward the high, pale blue ceiling, where faded feathers wafted among faint, billowy clouds framed by ornate crown moldings, and prayed silently.

It’s good to be here, Lord. Maybe that’s why You’ve allowed us to be driven from our own home. You seem to have deemed Chatam House a shelter for me in times of deepest trouble, so this must be Your way of taking care of me and Gilli. The aunties are a good influence on her, and I thank You for them and this big old house. I trust that You’ll have a new nanny prepared for us by the time we go back to our place.

Wincing, he realized that he had just betrayed reluctance to be at his own home alone with his own daughter. Abruptly he felt the millstone of failure about his neck.

Forgive me for my failings, Lord, he prayed, and please, please make me a better father. Amen.

Turning right, Reeves walked past the formal dining room and study on one side and the quaint cloak and “withdrawing rooms” on the other, to the formal front entry, where he left his coat draped over the curved banister at the bottom of the stairs. The “east” hall, which flanked the other side of the staircase, would have taken him past the cloak and restrooms again, as well as the library and ballroom. Both of the latter received a surprising amount of use because of the many charities and clubs in which the aunties were involved. The spacious front parlor, however, was definitely the busiest room in the house. Reeves headed there, unsurprised to find the doors wide open.

He heard the aunties’ voices, Hypatia’s well-modulated drawl, followed by Magnolia’s gruffer reply and Odelia’s twitter. Just the sound of them made him smile. He paid no attention to the words themselves. Pausing to take a look inside, he swept his gaze over groupings of antique furniture, pots of well-tended plants and a wealth of bric-a-brac. Seeing none but the aunties, he relaxed and strode into the room.

Three identical pairs of light, amber-brown eyes turned his way at once. That was pretty much where the similarities ended for the casual observer, although those sweetly rounded faces, from the delicate brows, aristocratic noses, prim mouths and gently cleft chins, were very nearly interchangeable.

Hypatia, as usual, appeared the epitome of Southern gentility in her neat lilac suit with her silver hair curled into a sleek figure-eight chignon at the nape of her neck and pearls at her throat. Magnolia, on the other hand, wore a drab shirtwaist dress decades out of style beneath an oversized cardigan sweater that had undoubtedly belonged to Grandpa Hub, dead these past ten years. Her steel-gray braid hung down her back, and she wore rundown slippers rather than the rubber boots she preferred for puttering around the flowerbeds and hothouse. Lovingly referred to as “Aunt Mags” by her many nieces and nephews, she hid a tender heart beneath a gruff, mannish manner.

Odelia, affectionately but all too aptly known as Auntie Od, was all ruffles and gathers and eye-popping prints, her white hair curling softly about her ears, which currently sported enamel daisies the size of teacups. Auntie Od was known for her outlandish earrings and her sweetness. The latter imbued both her smile and her eyes as her gaze lit on the newcomer.

“Reeves!”

He could not help laughing at her delight, a patent condition for the old dear.

“Hello, Aunt Odelia.” Going at once to kiss her temple, he held out a hand to Mags, who sat beside her sister on the prized Chesterfield settee that Grandma Augusta had brought back from her honeymoon trip to London back in 1932.

“Surprised to see you here this time of day,” Mags stated.

Swiveling, Reeves bussed her forehead, bemused by the strength of her grip on his fingers. “Honeybees,” he offered succinctly.

“What about them, dear?” Hypatia inquired calmly from her seat in the high-backed Victorian armchair facing the door through which he had entered. Its twin sat facing her, with its back to that door.

He leaned across the piecrust table to kiss her cool cheek, Mags still squeezing his hand. “They’ve invaded my attic.”

He quickly gave them the details, how the nanny had phoned in a panic that morning, shrieking that she and Gilli were under attack by “killer bees.” Racing home from his job as vice president of a national shipping company, he had found both of them locked into the nanny’s car in the drive. Inside the house, a dozen or more honeybees had buzzed angrily. Nanny had climbed up on a stool to investigate a stain on the kitchen ceiling. Hearing a strange hum, she’d poked at it. Something sticky had plopped onto the counter, and bees had swarmed through the newly formed hole in the Sheetrock.

Reeves had called an exterminator, who had refused even to come out. Instead, he’d been referred to a local “bee handler,” who had arrived outfitted head-to-toe in strange gear to tell him more than he’d ever wanted to know about the habits of the Texas honeybee. A quick inspection had revealed that thousands, perhaps millions, of the tiny creatures had infested his attic. It was going to take days to remove them all, and then his entire ceiling, which was saturated with honey, all of the insulation and much of the supporting structure of his roof would have to be torn out and replaced.

“Oh, my!” Odelia exclaimed, gasping. “The bees must have frightened Gilli.”

He spared her a smile before turning back to Hypatia, the undisputed authority at Chatam House. “Hardly. She wanted to know if she could keep them as pets.” Gilli had been begging for a pet since her birthday, but he didn’t have time to take care of a pet and so had staunchly refused.

“What can we do?” Hypatia asked, as pragmatic as ever.

“What you always do,” he told her, smiling. “Provide sanctuary. I’m afraid we’re moving in on you.”

“Well, of course, you are,” she said with a satisfied smile.

“It could be weeks,” he warned, “months, even.”

She waved that away with one elegant motion of her hand. She knew as well as he did that checking into a hotel with a three-year-old as rambunctious as Gilli would have been sure disaster, but he’d have chosen that option before moving in with his father, second stepmother and their daughter, his baby sister, who would soon turn four.

“There is another problem,” he went on. “Nanny quit. She’d been complaining that Gilli was too much for her.” Actually, she’d been complaining that he did not spend enough time with Gilli, but he was a single father with a demanding job. Besides, he paid a generous salary. “I guess the bees were the final straw. She just walked out.”

“That seems to be a habit where you’re concerned,” drawled an unexpected voice. “Women walking out.”

Reeves whirled to find a familiar figure in slim jeans and a brown turtleneck sweater slouching in the chair opposite Hypatia. A piquant face topped with a wispy fringe of medium gold bangs beamed a cheeky grin at him. His spirits dropped like a stone in a well, even as a new realization shook him. This was not the Anna Miranda of old. This Anna Miranda was a startlingly attractive version, as attractive in her way as Marissa was in hers. Oh, no, this was not the same old brat. This was worse. Much worse.

“Hello, Stick,” Anna Miranda said. “You haven’t changed a bit.”

“I’m so sorry, dear,” Hypatia cooed. “We forgot our manners in all the excitement. Reeves, you know Anna Miranda.”

Reeves frowned as if he’d just discovered the keys to his beloved first car glued to his locker door. Again. Anna smiled, remembering how she’d punished him for refusing her a ride in that car. Foolishly, she’d pined for his attention from the day that she’d first met him right here in this house soon after his parents had divorced. Even at ten, he’d had no use for an unhappy rebellious girl, especially one four years younger, and she had punished him for it, all the way through her freshman and his senior year in high school. While she’d agonized through her unrequited crush, he had pierced her hardened heart with his disdain. High school hadn’t been the same after he’d graduated. Despite his coolness, she had felt oddly abandoned.

In the twelve or thirteen years since, she had caught numerous glimpses of Reeves Leland around town. Buffalo Creek simply wasn’t a big enough town that they could miss each other forever. Besides, they were members of the same church, though she confined her participation to substituting occasionally in the children’s Sunday school. In all those years, they had never exchanged so much as a word, and suddenly, sitting here in his aunts’ parlor, she hadn’t been able to bear it a moment longer.

Reeves put on a thin smile, greeting her with a flat version of the name his much younger self had often chanted in a provoking, exasperated singsong. “Anna Miranda.”

Irrational hurt flashed through her, and she did the first thing that came to mind. She stuck out her tongue. He shook his head.

“Still the brat, I see.”

The superior tone evoked an all too familiar urge in her. To counter it, she grinned and crossed her legs, wagging a booted foot. “Better that than a humorless stick-in-the-mud, if you ask me.”

“Has anyone ever?” he retorted. “Asked your opinion, I mean.”

His response stinging, she let her gaze drop away nonchalantly, but Reeves had always been able to read her to a certain extent.

“Sorry,” he muttered.

Before Anna had to say anything, Odelia chirped in with a reply to Reeves’s tacky question. “Why, yes, of course,” Odelia declared gaily, waving a lace hanky she’d produced from somewhere. “We were just asking Anna Miranda’s opinion on the announcements for the spring scholarship auction. Weren’t we, sisters?”

“Invitations,” Hypatia corrected pointedly. “An announcement implies that we are compelling attendance rather than soliciting it.”

Anna’s mouth quirked up at one corner. As if the Chatam triplets did not command Buffalo Creek society, such society as a city of thirty thousand residents could provide, anyway. With Dallas just forty-five miles to the north, Buffalo Creek’s once great cotton center had disappeared, reducing the city to little more than a bedroom community of the greater Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex. Yet, the city retained enough of its unique culture to bear pride in it, and as a daughter of the area’s wealthiest family Hypatia Chatam, while personally one of the humblest individuals Anna had ever known, bore that community pride especially well.

“This spring,” Hypatia said with a slight tilt of her head, “instead of holding the dinner and auction at the college, as in years past, we are opening the house instead.”

This seemed no surprise to Reeves. “Ah.”

Everyone knew that Buffalo Creek Bible College, or BCBC, was one of his aunts’ favorite charities. Every spring, they underwrote a dinner and silent auction to raise scholarship funds. This year the event was to acquire a somewhat higher tone, moving from the drafty library hall at BCBC to the Chatam House ballroom. In keeping with the intended elegance of the occasion, they had contacted the only privately owned print shop in town for help with the necessary printed paper goods. Anna just happened to work at the print shop. Given her grandmother’s friendship with the Chatam triplets, they had requested that Anna call upon them. Her boss Dennis had grudgingly allowed it.

“Anna Miranda is helping us figure out what we need printed,” Mags explained. “You know, invitations, menus, advertisements…”

“Oh, and bid sheets,” Hypatia said to Anna Miranda, one slender, manicured forefinger popping up.

Anna Miranda sat forward, asking, “Have you thought of printed napkins and coasters? Those might add a nice touch.”

“Hmm.” Hypatia tapped the cleft in her Chatam chin.

Reeves looked at Anna Miranda. “What are you, a paper salesman, er, person?”

She tried to fry him with her glare. “I am a graphic artist, for your information.”

“Huh.” He said it as if he couldn’t believe she had an ounce of talent for anything.

“We’ll go with linen napkins,” Hypatia decided, sending Reeves a quelling look.

He bowed his head, a tiny muscle flexing in the hollow of his jaw.

“Magnolia, remember to tell Hilda to speak to the caterer about the linens, will you, dear?” Hypatia went on.

“If I don’t do it now I’ll just forget,” Magnolia complained, heaving herself up off the settee. She patted Reeves affectionately on the shoulder, reaching far up to do so, as she lumbered from the room. Suddenly Anna felt conspicuously out of place in the midst of this loving family.

“I should be going, too,” she said, clutching her leather-bound notebook as she rose. “If I’m not back in the shop soon, Dennis will think I’m goofing off.”

Hypatia stood, a study in dignity and grace. She smiled warmly at Anna Miranda. Reeves stepped away, taking up a spot in front of the plastered fireplace on the far wall where even now a modern gas jet sponsored a cheery, warming flame.

“I’ll see you out,” Hypatia said to Anna, and they moved toward the foyer. “Thank you for coming by. The college press is just too busy to accommodate us this year.”

“Well, their loss is our gain,” Anna replied cheerfully. “I should have some estimates for you soon. Say, have you thought about creating a logo design for the fund-raiser? I could come up with something unique for it.”

“What a lovely idea,” Hypatia said, nodding as they strolled side by side toward the front door. “I’ll discuss that with my sisters.”

“Great.”

Anna picked up her coat from the long, narrow, marble-topped table occupying one wall of the opulent foyer and shrugged into it. She glanced back toward the parlor and caught sight of Reeves. Frowning thoughtfully, he seemed very alone in that moment. Instantly Anna regretted that crack about women abandoning him.

As usual, she’d spoken without thinking, purely from pique because he’d so effectively ignored her to that point. It was as if they were teenagers again, so when he’d made that remark about the nanny walking out, Anna had put that together with what she’d heard about his ex simply hopping onto the back of a motorcycle and splitting town with her boyfriend. Now Anna wished she hadn’t thrown that up to him. Now that the harm was done.

Reeves leaned a shoulder against the mantle, watching as Hypatia waved farewell to Anna Miranda. He didn’t like what was happening here, didn’t trust Anna Miranda to give this matter the attention and importance that it deserved. In fact, he wouldn’t put it past her to turn this into some huge joke at his aunts’ expense. He still smarted inwardly from that opening salvo, but while she could make cracks about him all she wanted, he would not put up with her wielding her malicious sense of humor against his beloved aunties. He decided to stop in at the print shop and have a private chat with her.

“Lovely. Just lovely,” Odelia said from the settee, snagging his attention. “What color is it, do you think?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Antique gold. Yes, that’s it. Antique gold.” She made a swirling motion around her plump face with the lace hanky. “I wish I could wear mine that short.”

Reeves felt at a loss, but then he often did with Auntie Od. Adding Anna Miranda to the mix hadn’t helped. He walked toward the settee. “What about antique gold?”

The hanky swirled again. “Anna Miranda’s hair. Wouldn’t you say that perfectly describes the color of Anna Miranda’s hair?”

Antique gold. Yes, he supposed that did describe the color of Anna Miranda’s short, lustrous hair. It used to be lighter, he recalled, the brassy color of newly minted gold. She’d worn it cropped at chin length as a girl. Now it seemed darker, richer, as if burnished with age, and the style seemed at once wistful and sophisticated.

Unfortunately, while she’d changed on the outside—in some rather interesting ways, he admitted—she appeared not to have done so on the inside. She seemed to be the same cheeky brat who had tried to make his life one long joke. Reeves’s thoughtful gaze went back to the foyer door, through which Hypatia returned just that instant.

“She’s so very lovely,” Odelia prattled on, “and such a sweet girl, too, no matter what Tansy says.”

“Tansy would do better to say less all around, I think,” Hypatia remarked, “but then we are not to judge.” She lowered herself into her chair once more and smiled up at Reeves. “Honeybees,” she said. “I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

He shrugged. “According to the bee handler, we humans and the true killer bees coming up from the south are driving the poor honeybees out of their natural habitat, so they’re adapting by invading every quiet, sheltered space they can find, including attics, hollow walls, even abandoned cars.”

The sisters traded looks. Odelia said what they were both thinking.

“We should have Chester check out the house.”

“I think, according to what the bee handler told me, the attics here would be too high for them,” Reeves assured her.

“We’ll have Chester check, just to be sure,” Hypatia decided.

A crash sounded from the depths of the great old house, followed by a familiar wail, distant and faint but audible. Reeves sighed. “I’ll start looking for another nanny tomorrow.”

Hypatia smiled sympathetically. “It’s all right, dear. I’m sure we’ll manage until you’re ready to go back to your own home.”

Reeves closed his eyes with relief. Finding another nanny was one difficult, time-consuming chore he would gladly put on the back burner for now. He had enough to contend with. He wondered if he should contact his lawyer about Marissa. Just then Mags trundled into the room, huffing for breath.

“No harm done, but Gilli’s not apt to calm down until you go to her.”

Nodding grimly, Reeves strode from the room and headed for the kitchen. The sobs grew louder with every step, but it was a sound Reeves knew only too well. Not hurt and not frightened, rather they were demanding sobs, willful sobs, angry sobs and as hopeless as any tears could ever be. Deep down, even Gilli knew that he could do nothing. He could not make Marissa love them. He could not mend their broken family.

God help us both, he prayed. But perhaps He already had, honeybees and all.

The sanctuary of Chatam House, along with the wise, loving support of the aunties, was the best thing that had happened to them in more than a year. Pray God that it would be enough to help them, finally, find their way

“Poor Reeves,” Odelia said as his hurried footsteps faded.

“Poor Gilli,” Mags snorted. “That boy is deaf, dumb and blind where she’s concerned, though he means well, I’m sure.”

“Yes, of course,” Hypatia said, her gaze seeing back through the years. “Reeves always means well, but how could he know what to do with Gilli? Children learn by example, and while I love our baby sister, Dorinda hasn’t always done best by her oldest two. And that says nothing of their father.”

“Melinda has done well,” Odelia pointed out, referring to Reeves’s one full sibling. He had five half siblings, including twin sisters and a brother, all younger than him.

“True,” Hypatia acknowledged, “but I wonder if Melinda’s happy marriage hasn’t made Reeves’s divorce more difficult for him. He’s a man of faith, though, and he loves his daughter. He’ll learn to deal with Gilli eventually.”

Mags arched an eyebrow. “What that man needs is someone to help him understand what Gilli’s going through and how to handle her.”

“If anyone can understand Gilli, it’s Anna Miranda,” Odelia gushed.

Hypatia’s eyes widened. “You’re exactly right about that, dear.” She tapped the small cleft in her chin. Everyone in the family had one to some degree, but Hypatia wasn’t thinking of that now. She was thinking of Anna Miranda’s childhood. “I believe,” she said, eyes narrowing, “that Anna Miranda is going to be even more help to us than we’d assumed and in more ways than we’d realized.”

Mags sat up straight, both brows rising. After a moment, she slowly grinned. Odelia, however, frowned in puzzlement.

“Do you think she’ll volunteer for one of the committees?” Odelia asked.

“Oh, I think her talents are best used with the printing,” Hypatia mused. “She’s suggested that the fund-raiser should have its own unique logo, and I concur, but designing it will probably require a good deal of her time. After all, we have to pick just the right design.”

“Exactly the right design,” Magnolia agreed.

“Yes,” Hypatia went on, smiling broadly, “I do think that best suits our needs.”

“Ours,” Magnolia purred suggestively, “and Reeves’s.”

“And Gilli’s!” Odelia added brightly, finally seeing the wisdom of this decision.

Hypatia smiled. How perfect was the timing of God and how mysterious His ways. Honeybees, indeed.